REPORT on securing the objectives of the landing obligation under Article 15 of the Common Fisheries Policy

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

on securing the objectives of the landing obligation under Article 15 of the Common Fisheries Policy

(2019/2177(INI))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to the Commission communication of 7 June 2019 on the State of Play of the Common Fisheries Policy and Consultation on the Fishing Opportunities for 2020 (COM(2019)0274),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 16 June 2020 entitled ‘Towards more sustainable fishing in the EU: state of play and orientations for 2021’ (COM(2020)0248),

– having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 43(2) thereof,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) No 1380/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 December 2013 on the Common Fisheries Policy[1],

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2019/1241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on the conservation of fisheries resources and the protection of marine ecosystems through technical measures[2],

– having regard to the reports of the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) evaluating compliance with the landing obligation for the North Sea (2016-2017), North Western Waters (2016-2017) and mackerel in the North Sea and North Western Waters (2015-2017),

– having regard to the plenary reports of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF) (PLEN 20-01, 19-01, 18-01 and 17-01), and its reports ‘Evaluation of Member States' Annual Reports on the Landing Obligation (for 2019)’ (Adhoc-20-02), ‘Monitoring the performance of the Common Fisheries Policy’ (Adhoc-20-01) and ‘Evaluation of Joint Recommendations on the Landing Obligation and on the Technical Measures Regulation’ (STECF-20-04),

– having regard to Council Directive (EU) 2017/159 of 19 December 2016 implementing the Agreement concerning the implementation of the Work in Fishing Convention, 2007 of the International Labour Organisation[3],

– having regard to the article entitled ‘The unintended impact of the European discard ban’ published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science[4],

– having regard to the study ‘Implementation of the EU fisheries control system by Member States (2014-19)’, requested by the Committee on Fisheries,

– having regard to the studies requested by the Committee on Fisheries on the landing obligation and choke species in multispecies and mixed fisheries in the North Sea[5], the North Western Waters[6] and the South Western Waters[7], and the studies on the discard ban, landing obligation and maximum sustainable yield (MSY) in the Western Mediterranean[8],[9],

– having regard to the book ‘The European Landing Obligation, Reducing discards in complex, multi-species and multi-jurisdictional fisheries’[10], published in 2019,

– having regard to the report ‘A third assessment of global marine fisheries discards’, published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2019,

– having regard to Rule 54 of its Rules of Procedure,

– having regard to the report of the Committee on Fisheries (A9-0147/2021),

A. whereas target 14.4 of Goal 14 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development urges the international community to effectively regulate harvesting, end overfishing, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and destructive fishing practices, and implement science-based management plans by 2020, in order to restore fish stocks in the shortest time feasible, at least to levels that can produce the MSY as determined by their biological characteristics;

B. whereas the magnitude of annual discards in global marine capture fisheries is estimated to be 9.1 million tonnes, which represent 10.8 % of the annual average catch of 2010-2014; whereas fisheries targeting tuna species and other pelagic species had the lowest discard rates, while fisheries targeting crustaceans had the highest discard rates; whereas fisheries targeting demersal fish produced the highest volumes of discards and fisheries targeting molluscs (excluding cephalopods) produced the lowest volumes; whereas annual global discards peaked at around 18.8 million tonnes in 1989 and gradually declined to less than 10 million tonnes by 2014[11];

C. whereas discarding is a common fishery practice of returning unwanted catches to the sea, either dead or alive, owing to damaged fish, undersized individuals (minimum size restrictions), reasons of marketability, lack of quota, or catch composition rules; whereas, prior to the introduction of the landing obligation, it was not permitted to have undersized fish on board or to land them;

D. whereas unwanted catches and discards constitute a substantial waste of natural resources for human consumption and may have and often do have an adverse effect on the sustainable exploitation of fish stocks and marine ecosystems and the financial viability of fisheries; whereas a certain level of unwanted by-catch and discarding is unavoidable, especially in mixed fisheries;

E. whereas the historically high levels of discards in some EU fisheries have posed a serious problem to the long-term sustainability of EU fisheries, calling into question the credibility of the Union’s fisheries policy;

F. whereas the ban on the practice of high grading (discarding of marketable fish), which was introduced in the EU in 2010, has been poorly implemented;

G. whereas the common fisheries policy (CFP), as reformed in 2013, shall ensure that negative impacts of fishing activities on the marine ecosystem are minimised, and introduced the following objectives: (a) to ‘gradually eliminate discards, on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the best available scientific advice, by avoiding and reducing, as far as possible, unwanted catches, and by gradually ensuring that catches of regulated commercial species are landed’ and (b) ‘where necessary, [to] make the best use of unwanted catches, without creating a market for such of those catches that are below the minimum conservation reference size’;

H. whereas there is no reliable data on discards or scientific evidence to suggest that the implementation of the landing obligation has led to a substantial reduction in unwanted catches; whereas its poor implementation may have led to a loss of visibility of catches in some fisheries and to a degradation in the scientific advice and the quality of data;

I. whereas the fisheries sector has made progress towards achieving the MSY objective; whereas  99 % of landings in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the Atlantic in 2020 exclusively managed by the EU and for which scientific assessments are available came from sustainably managed fisheries; whereas in the northeast Atlantic the biomass for fully assessed stocks was 48 % higher in 2018 than in 2003; whereas significant challenges remain, especially in the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, where around 75 % of stocks that are scientifically assessed are overexploited;

J. whereas the landing obligation, which was phased in over four years (2015-2019), makes it mandatory to land and deduct from applicable quotas all catches of species which are subject to catch limits and, in the Mediterranean Sea, are subject to minimum sizes in EU waters, or in certain cases by EU vessels in international waters, and forbids the use of undersized fish for direct human consumption;

K. whereas according to the STECF[12], no information has been provided on the implementation of the landing obligation for the long-distance fleets operating outside Union waters; whereas the Long Distance Fleet Advisory Council (LDAC) highlighted that the landing obligation does not apply in practice to EU vessels fishing outside EU waters;

L. whereas landed fish below minimum conservation reference sizes continue to be used for fish meal, pet food or as bait for pot fisheries, with low economic returns; whereas these alternative uses are economically feasible when there is a production facility nearby the landing port, but the feasibility declines (or disappears) when there is the need for logistics and infrastructure for long-distance transport or investments in new production facilities[13];

M. whereas several Member States suggest that legislation should be amended to allow fish under the relevant minimum conservation reference sizes which are subject to a landing obligation to be used for charitable purposes;

N. whereas the landing obligation is not a fully comprehensive discard ban as it only applies to regulated species (total allowable catches (TACs) and effort-regulated fisheries for which a minimum size has been defined) and includes exemptions for fish showing damage caused by predators and for high survivability and a de minimis exemption of up to 5 % in cases where selectivity increases are difficult to achieve or where handling unwanted catches entails disproportionate costs; whereas the implementation of the landing obligation also depends on extensive use of temporary exemptions which require review based on scientific assessment, absorbing time and effort from decision-makers and the fishing sector;

O. whereas discard levels vary widely by region and species, with little or no discards in fisheries where most or all of the catch is of commercial value and exploited, as is the case in small-scale or traditional fisheries and fisheries whose production is for direct human consumption;

P. whereas small-scale fishing employs more operators and uses more selective gear, causing less environmental damage and playing a key social and economic role, as highlighted by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM)'s State of Mediterranean and Black Sea Fisheries (SoMFi) 2018 report;

Q. whereas fisheries discards contribute to the feeding of a range of scavenger species, from avian to mesopelagic and benthic communities, which are of importance in the trophic ecology chain; whereas scientific literature concludes that the reduction in discards through the landing obligation may affect populations of a few species in some areas, but generally this is unlikely to be the case;

R. whereas ‘choke species’ are fish species or stocks for which a given Member State, fleet or vessel has fewer fishing opportunities (quota) than for other species; whereas full and strict compliance with the landing obligation, especially in mixed fisheries, would mean closing the relevant fishery (‘choking’) once the (limited) quota for that species has been used up in order to stop any further catches of it; whereas the potential for choking in mixed fisheries remains a serious problem and may have contributed to the low implementation of the landing obligation and curtailed quota exchanges between Member States, thereby exacerbating the under-utilisation of fishing possibilities;

S. whereas selectivity will not fully solve the problems in these fisheries as it may be technically difficult to reduce catches of the relevant choke stocks without causing large losses of other marketable catches, thus creating serious economic difficulties for the fleets concerned; whereas quota pools for by-catch have been recently adopted to counter choke species situations, the effectiveness of which remains to be assessed;

T. whereas the amount of unwanted fish caught in the net and hauled on board can be significantly reduced in the first place through spatial and temporal avoidance and technical selectivity measures, thereby reducing handling time, fuel consumption and storage needs;

U. whereas the STECF highlights that relatively few measures aimed at increasing selectivity were contained in the joint recommendations by Member States’ regional groups for the implementation of the landing obligation in 2021; whereas the number of pilot projects to test more selective gear or avoidance strategies, in accordance with Article 14 of the CFP, has been declining;

V. whereas the Council has removed several species from the list of TACs over the past few years, thereby removing them also from being subject to the landing obligation;

W. whereas the landing obligation is an instrument to achieve the CFP’s goal of selectivity and not a goal in itself;

X. whereas quota pools for by-catch have been recently adopted to counter choke species situations;

Y. whereas discarding unwanted catches is a phenomenon present in all fisheries around the world and is not a unique problem to Europe; whereas the EU’s waters are notable for their abundance of mixed fisheries; whereas several third countries and self-governing territories have established discard bans to different extents, including Canada, the Faroe Islands, Norway, Iceland, Chile and New Zealand; whereas other third countries, such as the USA, have not banned discards since their fisheries legislation instead uses other approaches to reducing unwanted catches; whereas Norway and Iceland’s discards ban has been adapted over 30 years in response to specific problems; whereas the impact of Chile’s discard ban is not yet fully known because it has only just begun implementing it; whereas discards remain a major problem in New Zealand’s fisheries management;

Z. whereas the principle of relative stability, first set out in the CFP basic regulation of 1983 and implemented by the TACs and Quota Regulation of the same year, lays down a distributional key of the TAC by Member State based on the allocation principles of historical catches (1973-1978), dependency as enshrined in the Hague Preferences of 1976, and jurisdictional losses (1973-1976);

AA. whereas almost 4 000 scientific papers have been published on discards, of which more than 3 700 are related to industrial fisheries, while fewer than 200 papers are focused on small-scale coastal fisheries;

AB. whereas since about 1950 many marine species across various groups have undergone shifts in geographical range and seasonal activities in response to ocean warming and biogeochemical changes, such as oxygen loss, to their habitats, which has resulted in shifts in species composition, abundance and biomass production of ecosystems, from the equator to the poles; whereas the change in the distribution of fish stocks has an impact on future fisheries management and hence also on the implementation of the landing obligation;

AC. whereas the Commission conducted a socioeconomic impact assessment on discard reducing policies prior to its proposal for a new CFP basic regulation in July 2011, but has so far failed to thoroughly analyse its socioeconomic impact and effects on safety on board or to provide answers to the concerns about implementation raised by the Advisory Councils and Member States;

AD. whereas the extent to which discards have been reduced is still unknown; whereas up to five Member States provided no response to the Commission’s questionnaire on the implementation of the landing obligation for 2019, and two of these States have failed to do so for the last three years;

AE. whereas differences in the control and enforcement of the landing obligation can lead to an uneven playing field within and between Member States; whereas in its reports evaluating compliance with the landing obligation, the EFCA found insufficient implementation by Member States and put forward recommendations to improve control;

AF. whereas the Commission must submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the CFP, including the landing obligation, by 31 December 2022;

1. Affirms the EU’s overall objective of ensuring the sustainable exploitation of fish stocks and the protection of marine ecosystems; highlights that reducing discards and minimising unwanted catches are a public policy priority that has been shaped in response to concerns over accountability, conservation and the wasting of natural resources, as well as the scientific need to fully account for all sources of fishing mortality;

2. Regrets that the Commission’s annual reports on the state of play of the CFP include very little information on the implementation of the landing obligation, with no information so far on the extent to which discards have been reduced under the obligation and with no analysis of the socioeconomic impact of the obligation or the effects of its implementation on safety on board fishing vessels;

3. Acknowledges that the introduction of the landing obligation represents a paradigm shift and one of the greatest challenges in the history of EU fisheries management – from recording landings, and even making discards mandatory at times, to a system that records the entire catch – which together with the introduction of the MSY policy, has inevitably had a range of far-reaching short- and long-term ecological and socioeconomic impacts; stresses the need for an assessment of the socioeconomic impact of the landing obligation;

4. Notes that the MSY policy does not imply that there are no discards, and discarding does not mean that the MSY could not be reached – evidence of both statements can be found in many stocks, including by-catch species;

5. Highlights the progress made in terms of stakeholder cooperation and the steps taken to improve selectivity; notes, however, that, according to the Commission and the STECF, implementation of the landing obligation remains low overall and that discarding is occurring at rates roughly comparable to the years before the landing obligation was introduced;

6. Acknowledges that since 2010 there has been an obligation to record discards in the logbook under the Fisheries Control Regulation; deplores that, despite the introduction of the landing obligation, there is still limited reliable data and knowledge on the volume of discards, the number of precautionary TACs has increased, in contrast with the reduction in the quantities of analytical TACs, and the availability of scientific information on the status of the stocks has not substantially improved;

7. Notes that the landing obligation continues to raise concerns in the fishing industry and within the scientific community due to obstacles of a diverse nature; points out that the fisheries sector’s causes of concern are the lack of adequate infrastructure at ports, rising operating costs, lack of incentives for compliance provided by the authorities, and difficulties in achieving greater selectivity in some fisheries without jeopardising the economic viability of fishing, especially in mixed fisheries exposed to a high risk of choke situations leading to under-utilisation of available quota and potential early closure of fisheries and creating serious economic difficulties for the fleets concerned; notes that so far only two cases have been reported: sole (Belgium) and bigeye tuna (France);

8. Regrets that the difficulties encountered in implementing the discard ban have led to a negative depiction of fishers and the efforts of the fisheries sector, despite the progress made in achieving the MSY objective;

9. Notes the recent measures taken to date – quota swaps and quota pools for by-catch species – although these measures are mostly non-permanent and subject to negotiations between the Member States and their efficiency still needs to be thoroughly assessed; highlights the need to remove administrative obstacles to an effective implementation of the landing obligation and to enhance the development and uptake of new selective gear and further develop effective by-catch reduction plans with the aim of rebuilding vulnerable stocks;

10. Stresses the potential and the need for the use of the exceptions (high survivability and the de minimis exemption) provided for in the regulation to facilitate implementation and counteract potential choke situations; recalls that reliable and accurate evidence and data need to be provided and recommends that the process for granting exemptions should be streamlined, including better scientific data collection;

11. Stresses that the STECF has acknowledged that the quality of submissions to support the exemptions has generally improved since the first joint recommendations were submitted in 2014; recognises that providing data and information in support of the exemptions can be challenging due to the nature of the data required; notes with concern, however, that the STECF has highlighted that there are many cases where the information and data supplied are not species and/or fishery specific and the same studies and assumptions are used to support multiple exemptions; stresses that the absence of species- and fishery-specific data and information makes it difficult to evaluate the likely impact of a proposed exemption or whether the exemption meets the conditions for the de minimis or high survival exemptions;

12. Is concerned that the progressive reduction of certain flexible arrangements, such as the de minimis exemption, may cause or aggravate the choking effect and lead to the closure of fisheries; stresses the need to continue developing effective by-catch reduction schemes in less selective fisheries such as pelagic trawling grounds;

13. Recalls that the landing obligation is not a goal in itself but a tool to drive improvements in fishing and operational behaviour, incentivise the development and usage of more selective gears to minimise unwanted catches, and improve catch documentation for a better understanding and scientific assessment of fish stocks; notes that many fishers do not concur with the link between the objectives of the landing obligation and its implementation, which tends to hamper compliance; recognises that while pursuing this ultimate objective requires time and sufficient knowledge, greater efforts are needed to promote a common understanding of it and to put into practice the results of the studies carried out by scientists and fishers to improve selectivity and reduce unwanted catches; calls on the Commission to continue to support plans to improve selectivity, including where appropriate by using incentives for the uptake of more selective gear;

14. Stresses the specificities of the outermost regions, particularly in terms of vessels, ageing fleets, and ports with reduced storage and processing capacity, which may render the landing obligation impractical;

15. Notes that discard levels vary heavily from fisheries to sea basins, leading to the perception that the ‘one rule fits all’ approach may not be the optimal strategy to encourage fishers to become more selective; calls on the Commission to identify the main shortcomings and to propose adapted and tailor-made solutions for specific fisheries for each sea basin, paying particular attention to small-scale artisanal fishing, especially in the outermost regions;

16. Recalls that the current legal framework provides the legal basis for Member States to actively work together to define selective fishing rules in a more flexible manner and to deploy scientifically proven mitigation tools; calls on the Member States to enhance their cooperation through a regional approach, including the involvement of relevant stakeholders and Advisory Councils, and to make full use of the subsidies available to them to this end; reiterates the need to ensure a level playing field in the implementation of the landing obligation;

17. Welcomes the results from recent scientific studies (e.g. DiscardLess, MINOUW and LIFE iSEAS) on innovative gear selectivity, avoidance strategies and vessel modifications to handle unwanted catches on board; considers it necessary to continue research efforts to improve gear selectivity, avoidance strategies and handling of unwanted catches; welcomes the proposed ‘Mission Starfish 2030: Restore our Ocean and Waters’ and considers that a mission in the area of healthy oceans, seas and coastal and inland waters will help develop urgently needed solutions  that have a direct impact on the fishing sector and the sustainable use and management of ocean resources;

18. Stresses that efficient fisheries management systems, including being able to use all elements to properly implement the landing obligation and achieve the objectives of the CFP, need to be supported by accurate and reliable catch documentation and scientific data; calls on the Commission and the Member States to step up efforts to fully implement applicable EU legislation if needed and to take further action to ensure full documentation and data collection, in a manner proportionate to their fishing capacity for the small-scale coastal fleet;

19. Is concerned about the lack of proper control over and compliance with the landing obligation and underlines the negative impact of such deficiencies on sustainability, also due to the setting of TACs based on total catch including so-called ‘top-ups’ to cover fish previously discarded;

20. Highlights that the existence of numerous rules, exemptions and derogations adopted over the past few years complicates the implementation of the landing obligation and the compliance evaluation by the EFCA, making it more difficult to achieve the objectives of protecting and improving the sustainability of fisheries; stresses that the use of the exemptions as provided in the CFP is of the utmost  importance for the implementation of the landing obligation;

21. Calls for better use to be made of new technologies and digital solutions developed in cooperation with the fishing sector and Member States’ authorities to improve monitoring, control and surveillance, in full respect of privacy rights and business confidentiality;

22. Stresses the crucial role of fishers and other stakeholders in implementing policies, thus fostering a culture of compliance, and gradual and adaptable changes in landing obligation rules over time; highlights the additional benefits of voluntary and incentive-linked schemes to improve fishers’ involvement;

23. Stresses that while improving selectivity must continue to be a high priority, implementing the landing obligation requires a cross-sectoral approach and clear incentives to be devised to encourage best-practice mitigation; recommends the following accompanying measures and management tools:

a. further use and optimisation of quota-based tools, in line with the principles of the CFP and provided that effective control measures are put in place, such as:

– the distribution of quotas in line with the expected catch composition;

– adjustments through quota swaps with other Member States and neighbouring third countries with which the EU shares stocks, carried out in a flexible and efficient manner to avoid under-utilisation of quotas by, for example, moving towards permanent and not only annually renewable mechanisms after the setting of TACs and quotas, in line with the best available scientific advice;

– allocation of estimated discard share of quotas for fishers, especially those operating on a small scale, that opt to use more selective gear;

b. studying the feasibility of implementing a marine spatial planning and area-based management approach in order to avoid discards by guiding fishers to areas where undersized fish are less likely to be present, while ensuring that such measures do not result in an extensive non-use of other commercially sized species;

c. providing greater flexibility to allow fishers to choose gear solutions, coupled with greater responsibility for documentation (full documentation of catches);

d. providing flexible mechanisms for the approval of new types of selective gear in order to incentivise stakeholders to apply for and carry out pilot projects;

e. granting exclusive access to fishing locations or time periods in order to encourage selectivity;

f. adopting strategies to make the best use of unwanted catches for purposes other than human consumption without creating a demand for undersized catches and provided that it is feasible for fishers in economic and operational terms;

g. developing a discard atlas as an inventory of unwanted catches in the different fisheries and areas in order to better develop regional by-catch plans, involving Member States and the fishing industry and supported by the European Maritime and Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund;

h. using and developing voluntary and incentive-linked artificial intelligence tools to increase selectivity and control and improve species identification, in collaboration with the fishing sector and Member States’ authorities;

i. progressively introducing the requirement for compliance with the same discard policy for imports of fisheries products from third countries in order to eliminate the comparative disadvantage and unfair competition for the European fleet, while moving towards better protection of global fisheries resources;

j. renewing the Commission’s obligation to report annually on the state of play of the CFP and the implementation of the landing obligation, and providing more information on its implementation, including the socioeconomic impact and, among other aspects, fuel consumption, storage space, the effects on safety and working conditions on board fishing vessels, the reduction of discards and unwanted catches, and the improved status of stocks (MSY);

24. Calls on the Commission, within the framework of the evaluation report on the implementation of the CFP due in 2022 to, in particular:

a. assess the extent to which the reduction of discards under the landing obligation has been achieved and whether it has contributed to improving the status of stocks (MSY) and to reducing the impact on the marine ecosystem;

b. assess the socioeconomic impact of the landing obligation, the remuneration system, the number of crew members and the safety and working conditions on board, in line with FAO and ILO recommendations;

c. identify and monitor fisheries where scientific evidence indicates that increases in selectivity are currently difficult to achieve;

d. assess the effectiveness and applicability of the recently adopted  quota pools for by-catch as an efficient and applicable tool to counter choke species situations;

e. assess the impact on the sustainability of the species removed by the Council from the list of stocks subject to TACs in recent years and evaluate the potential consequences of its reintroduction under the TAC system;

f. identify and remove the administrative difficulties encountered in developing and implementing selectivity pilot projects, which are hampering fishers’ efforts to be more selective;

g. identify commercial and/or charitable opportunities in an effort to have the best possible usage of those unavoidable landed catches below minimum conservation reference sizes and unwanted catches, in order to avoid waste of natural resources, as well as avoiding jeopardising the sustainability objectives of the CFP;

h. assess whether the current landing obligation policy is fit for purpose and evaluate the feasibility of adapting the landing obligation on a case-by-case basis by fishery and/or stock;

i. assess pathways for better adaptation and simplification of Article 15 of the CFP to facilitate its implementation and understanding by all stakeholders and in particular the use by Member States of the overall available tools provided by the legal framework in place to improve selectivity and reduce unwanted catches;

25. Calls on the Commission to submit, based on this evaluation and if appropriate, a legislative proposal in order to better achieve the objectives of reducing discards and improving stocks;

26. Underlines the concern that stocks shared with third countries are not always subject to the same provisions on discards; stresses the need for progressive convergence with regard to the main objectives of fisheries management in order to ensure the highest standards for achieving good environmental status vis-à-vis the shared marine ecosystem, sustainability of the fishing activity and maintaining a level playing field with third countries, in particular the United Kingdom;

27. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee and the governments and parliaments of the Member States.

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